CEOs from the emerging markets, including China and India, are
more upbeat about business prospects this year than those from the
developed world, shows a survey.
The survey, conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers and released
yesterday at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos,
Switzerland, showed CEOs from developed countries cited fears of a
global recession as the major threat to growth.
This year's results, for the first time, put down a potential
economic downturn as the major concern for international business
leaders since the survey's inception 11 years ago.
The survey showed business confidence suffered the biggest drop
in North America, where just 35 percent of the CEOs said they were
"very confident" about growth, compared with 53 percent last
year.
Confidence among Western European CEOs fell to 44 percent, down
8 percentage points.
In contrast, CEO confidence in the surging economies of the
Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe rose to
about 55 percent. The growing confidence was especially evident in
China and India - where respectively 73 percent and 90 percent of
the CEOs were "very confident" about the prospects for growth this
year.
"The credit crunch and the slowdown in the Western economies
have created a clear split in the confidence levels of CEOs around
the world," said Samuel A. DiPiazza, global CEO of
PricewaterhouseCoopers.
"The possibility that the downturn could worsen into recession
looms large for CEOs in developed economies like the US and Western
Europe. In the emerging economies, CEO confidence remains strong,
perhaps because they have experienced nothing but rapid expansion
for a decade or more."
Compared with last year, a possible economic downturn is the
only risk factor that has increased as a concern for CEOs. Other
risks to business growth, including energy supply, global climate
change and terrorism, declined as business threats. Over-regulation
and availability of talent were also top CEO concerns.
Over-regulation was mentioned by 59 percent of the respondents,
down from 73 percent in the previous year's survey.
(China Daily January 24, 2008)
